


hold me, carry me slowly, my sunlight

by Good0mens



Series: I'd be home with you [3]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Dancing, Dancing in the Rain, Festival, Fluff, Hades!Nicky, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Kissing in the Rain, Longing, M/M, Midsummer, Music, Persephone!Yusuf, Rain, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, References to Sex, happy fic, playing fast and loose with Greek mythology, summer/winter metaphors, sun metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29918109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Good0mens/pseuds/Good0mens
Summary: There is a reason, Nicolo thinks as he watches his lover part the crowds with nimble feet, that they call Yusuf the venerable one.It’s midsummer, and everything is alight with the glow coming off the other god. The square is full of people celebrating summer’s ecstatic peak, hot breeze carrying the smell of pollen and rain from Yusuf’s warm skin. He is the golden age incarnate. He is radiant. Nicolo can only watch, in adoring awe, as the music swells like a bloating orange, and Yusuf pulls another villager from the crowd to dance.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: I'd be home with you [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2179953
Comments: 21
Kudos: 86





	hold me, carry me slowly, my sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> from a prompt: Each day, you’d rise with me / Know that I would gladly be / The Icarus to your certainty / Oh, my sunlight, sunlight, sunlight // sunlight, hozier
> 
> Set sometime after their first time, but before Yusuf ties himself to Nicolo’s realm in Hades
> 
> Crossposted on tumblr, because that's where writing goes to ~die~

There is a reason, Nicolò thinks as he watches his lover part the crowds with nimble feet, that they call Yusuf _the venerable one._

It’s midsummer, and everything is alight with the glow coming off the other god. The square is full of people celebrating summer’s ecstatic peak, hot breeze carrying the smell of pollen from Yusuf’s warm skin. He is the golden age incarnate. He is _radiant._ Nicolò can only watch, in adoring awe, as the music swells like a bloating orange, and Yusuf pulls another villager from the crowd to dance.

There’s clapping and singing mirth as the beat finds its feet in a steady rhythm among the throng of excitement and rapture. Yusuf’s body sways to it, or perhaps it’s the music that sways to him; Nicolò can’t quite tell with the fluidity and symphonic synchrony of his movements. The earth certainly is shifting itself for him, though that too may just be Nicolò’s axis tilting toward its bright centre.

Yusuf’s lilac toga catches on the fingers of a few errant children running around his legs, but the vines keeping them together adjust accordingly. Yusuf takes their hands and dances with them too. Their clumsiness doesn’t affect his own grace; in fact, Nicolò doesn’t think Yusuf could be inelegant if he tried.

He’s got flowers in his hair and his beard, just as Nicolò has become accustomed to seeing, although these had been threaded in by little hands, so they don’t sway and sigh with Yusuf as they normally would. Nicolò’s own arctic fingers ache to twirl in the tight curls, to pluck polar pleasured sounds from Yusuf as if he were cotton flower on a white poplar tree.

It’s been too long since the equinox.

For the longest time, Nicolò had only known himself as a harsh hail of unfeeling. Much too sharp, a cold snap of indifference, like the way teeth and bone snap closed in a resigned clenched jaw. A shiver of loneliness, crystalline and hard, icy isolation that screams _do not touch._

Yusuf laid one hand up on his storm-bringer skin and Nicolò _thawed._

He’d happily melt, too, under Yusuf’s sunlit resplendence. Even now, glacial gluttony, slow like the drip of water off too-warm ice, runs like the damned down his spine. He’s known blood and bleeding more intimately than most, but nothing like this; this haemorrhaging of love that refuses to clot or coalesce into something manageable. The same crimson colour as the pomegranate juice spilling from the corners of Yusuf’s mouth in Nicolò’s dreams.

Distracted, he doesn’t notice that Yusuf has danced his way over to Nicolò until there’s a shock of pure heat sliding into his palm and slipping between his fingers, filling every gap with light. Nicolò gasps, ready to protest, because this is _dangerous._ They are too different and too powerful to let themselves get carried away here.

But Yusuf’s sun-kissed face splits into a horizon smile, shy like it’s afraid to rise, and every little thought in Nicolò’s head is surrendered up to the sky. What else can Nicolò do but quake and cave to that magnificent sight?

“Dance with me,” Yusuf asks, eyes flirting with Nicolò’s self-control as he tugs him into the makeshift circle.

Nicolò is used to the idle chill of winter, and frolicking is not in his repertoire. So he lets Yusuf take the lead, pouring himself into that strong embrace. Yusuf slides one smouldering arm around Nicolò’s waist, careful to keep it light, and directs Nicolò’s other arm much the same on Yusuf, holding him steady to Yusuf as they move across the cobblestone.

The hand still in Yusuf’s prickles, but he doesn’t care. It’s more like the dull throb of a sunburn than a scalding sting. He knows he would endure far more than a little pain to keep Yusuf pressed up against him like this; having Yusuf so close is like a fog clearing, like the coming of spring after too long spent buried under sorrowful snow.

The music is keeping up with their twirling, twisting bodies, though Yusuf’s eyes never leave his as he navigates them through the other bodies surrounding them. He can feel the attraction gusting through him like the cold winds of winter, swirling and unfurling like a hurricane. He wants to kiss the freckle on his nose.

Yusuf must feel it too, because his grip on Nicolò’s waist tightens. The warmth bleeds through the cloth, searing into his flesh, and Nicolò wants _more._ Yusuf gives it to him in the form of a kiss that kicks the world off-kilter.

Their lips meet in a clap of thunder that resonates with the people’s hands keeping time. Nicolò can’t bring himself to worry about the tempest gathering in the air as he tilts Yusuf’s head to slide their mouths together. Let the clouds burst, let the friction and furore between them serve as a warning to all those watching: _he is mine, and you cannot take him from me._

He pulls away before his lips can blister, more for Yusuf’s peace of mind than for his own safety. The music hasn’t stopped serenading the fragrant festivities going on around them, and the people are still dancing. Yusuf laughs, free and joyful, and Nicolò splits further open in a downpour of love.

This is them, _Yusuf and Nicolò;_ their love manifested in humid air and cool rain. Nicolò throws caution to the wind and leans forward to kiss him again.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still planning on making a final one of these, with a proper happy ending for these two! This was just a little in-between fic.
> 
> If you like this, let me know by leaving a comment!


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